Slovo Park at a Glance

Slovo Park is situated in a politically and socially sensitive stretch of land south of Soweto. The community has been known by national government as Nancefield, by local council as Olifantsvlei and in the last five years as Slovo Park – named in honour of South Africa’s first minister of housing and formerUmkhonto we Sizwe General, Joe Slovo.

The forced changing of identity reflects an on-going struggle faced by the leadership of Slovo Park to gain recognition as a legitimate settlement to access governmental support. This battle has been fought through constant shifts in governmental policy, power and promises for the community of Slovo Park. Their only tactics comprising of service delivery protest, painstaking formal requests for upgrade and currently a lawsuit against the City of Johannesburg.

Currently the community of Slovo Park with its development partners are strategizing this key social and political move.

THIS SITE SERVES AS A PORTAL FOR THE COMMUNITY OF SLOVO PARK & THE VARIOUS DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS TO SHARE THE JOURNEY OF RE-DEVELOPMENT.

NEWSFEED

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Monday, March 30, 2015

For the 2015 Green week project, we were tasked to work in a multi- disciplinary team to solve a community-based problem for a community partner. Working in collaboration with Enactus (an entrepreneurial division within UJ), we were introduced to a group of entrepreneurial co-operatives As a team, we were required to apply a range of design methods, processes and techniques competently to solve a problem, documenting our development on a video and printed presentation. As a team we collaborated with members of “The Community Youth mission Club”, a newly formed nonprofit organisation working to empower the youth living in Slovo park township through community youth projects. As an organisation, they intend to implement programmes that are designed to develop and empower the youth within Slovo Park and develop a sense of belonging. These projects would also function as a proactive mechanism to reduce high levels of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, domestic violence, poverty and lack of education in the Slovo Park community.

Problem identificationDuring the initial meeting stage, we identified a variety of existing problems. We discovered that, due to lack of funding and knowledge, the organisation had failed to create a stable platform upon which to promote their initiatives. With no real foundation to work from, they struggled to gain support from the community. They did not have their own working space and operated from a small shelter which had been vandalised and was practically unusable. With little entrepreneurial skills, the threat of vandalisation and very little start-up capital, we as designers were faced with the challenging task of creating an affordable platform that the co-operatives could use to promote their initiative.

Our SolutionHaving identified the problems, we decided to create a means of promotion that would be affordable and effective. With this, we focused on their working space. Due to political tension in the community, the existing shelter was vandalised. With the threat of further damage ever-present, we decided to integrate a portable, branded Gazebo unit as part of their promotional platform.

This solution,
aimed at spreading awareness, would be well suited to the organisation
with its ease of use, mobility, brand exposure and affordability. This
temporary structure also solves the issue of theft and vandalisation
(they can move it around and keep the foldable structure in a safe
place).

Scaled Mock-up

We then decided to establish a unique brand identity for them through a
new logo design, business card, T-shirt and poster. This would allow
them to visually define their brand and identify themselves easily with
the Slovo Park community.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

The purpose of the unit was for us (students) to work in a multi-disciplinary team, applying detailed knowledge of our various disciplines to innovatively solve an economic, environmental or social community-based problem for a community partner.We met with our co-operatives from Slovo Park Youth Forum which is known as Community Youth Mission Club to talk about the social and environmental issues within the community they operate. We then all drove to Slovo Park and walked around for few hours to observe the changes they have done in the community. Our co-operatives were very kind and friendly to us, they bought us soft drinks to cool down after walking.

Mahlomola, Andrew and Tsogolo. (Youth Forum members)

The issues they are facing include lack of purpose amongst the youth, lack of opportunitiesfor the youth to develop skills, substance abuse, teen pregnancy & lack of motivation. The group would like to expose the youth to more opportunities such as internships and apprenticeships so they can develop their skills.

We suggested the following solutions as a group:

Creating an identity for the group so that they will be easily recognized within Slovo Park.

Create a ‘Notice Wall’ inside the community hall; the wall will be painted with black chalkboard paint so that notices can be written regarding the CYMC and opportunities relating to the youth.

A Facebook Page can be set up to keep the Slovo Park youth informed of opportunities as well as what the CYMC provides, this can be in digital form as posts or members can take photos of the ‘Notice Wall’ and post it on the facebook wall. This will keep information circulating and make the Community Youth Mission Club more interactive.